Stef's Blog - a native London Southlander and unrepentant 'Conspiraloon™' who doesn't trust anyone, not even himself. Sometimes I take pictures. I also enjoy swearing immensely and think much faster than I can type, so each post comes guaranteed to include at last one confusing typo. OK?

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Well, it's not as if there's much else going on is there?

And today's 'Is it Real or is it Daily Mash?' news story comes from....

39 comments:

Anti_NWO
said...

Better than demonising us poor unemployed folk though, right Stef? I already hear enough shit from the assholes that make up Middle England. Or should that be "lucky bastards who had a free degree education and nicer parents"..

I also just miss out on falling into the Baby Boomer bracket so I can slag Boomers off with a clear conscience

Fuckin' hippies

Fuckin' sell-out hippies who've signed up their kids for a lifetime of serfdom

Any Muppet should be able to see now that scrapping assistance for tertiary education was all about a systematic policy of turning an entire generation into debt bitches, before they even started work, and nothing to do with shortage of funds

and a fantastic introduction to the insane levels of debt those kids would be manipulated into taking on once they left education

On the bright side, what with the stock market and property falls, and generally bankrupt economy most of the Boomers are about to get reamed in the kind of way they thought, if they thought about it, that their kids were going to get shafted

just when they thought they were going to retire

oh dear

that won't be much of a consolation for the younger generations who've had various ladders pulled up from in front of them though

Also, the governments of Blair and Brown increased public sector numbers by almost a million staff. What the fuck do these people do? They must all be pen pushers or working for the police state, because I see frontline services cut back or struggling all the time.

Jobcentre Plus was cut back just as the worst of the "crunch" hit the country - how convenient...

On 11 December 2008, the Barclay brothers were in the news for pulling out their investments (which include hotels) from the island of Sark, causing 100 staff to be made redundant (one sixth of the workforce) and threatening the economic stability of the island after local voters did not support candidates championed by the Barclay brothers. The brothers had previously warned that if the voters chose to bring back the 'establishment' Sark leaders that are still aligned with the feudal lord then they would pull out of Sark.[6]

Apparently globalisation was inevitable, and "protectionism doesnt work" so all tariffs stopping imported shit from slaves in China were dropped. Plus some other crap about not being able to compete with other countries' output...

That little rodent showed that it is not dependent on the welfare state and that it could stand on its own two feet. I mean swim. And four feet. And a tail. Swim with its own four feet and save it self with its tail.

It is my hero.

It clearly shows that dependency on a welfare state is quite dangerous when instead you could use your own four feet and your own tail and have the sheer luck of a piece of driftwood, well, drifting by.

I am glad I life in times were people still know what social progress is.

In a recent response, Tony Blair told reporters "This is symbolic of a different society and welfare state. The welfare state should become about the Government helping people to help themselves, about personal responsibility which the Government then supports, rather than the Government doing everything for people or simply handing out benefits to people."

Just as that little lovely rodent was able to build up assets so it could become more self-sufficient and hand down wealth to its children, this policy of chilling social cold enables me to do same.

http://www.v5loans.co.uk/ (posted by the following individual I'm quoting)

"I think its genius, you are legally robbing fucktarded pikeys. Goes against what this stupid government are striving to do. I bet the owner of this company doesnt even mind paying his 40%, as he will know that his tax is being used, through welfare, to fund his customers repayments."

@Paul: Oh, you must mean those fancy hotels and resorts they build in Dubai? Aren't they great! Just dreaming to life one day there.

.

While thinking of it: The news stories about the construction business in the middle east are a bit sparse lately, it seems. No more fancy stories about the wealth they build there with oil money? Even a communist comrade of mine fell for those, until I had to remind him that it was all build with borrowed money on the assumption that the price of buildings would go up, ad infinitum and very steady yet steeply. He could tell you about the capitalistic mode of production but had no idea about actually existing capitalism.

He should have known better:

However, in addition to this commercial credit we have actual money credit. The advances of the industrialists and merchants among one another are amalgamated with the money advances made to them by the bankers and money-lenders. In discounting bills of exchange the advance is only nominal. A manufacturer sells his product for a bill of exchange and gets this bill discounted by some bill-broker. In reality, the latter advances only the credit of his banker, who in turn advances to the broker the money-capital of his depositors. The depositors consist of the industrial capitalists and merchants themselves and also of workers (through savings-banks) — as well as ground-rent recipients and other unproductive classes. In this way every individual industrial manufacturer and merchant gets around the necessity of keeping a large reserve fund and being dependent upon his actual returns. On the other hand, the whole process becomes so complicated, partly by simply manipulating bills of exchange, partly by commodity transactions for the sole purpose of manufacturing bills of exchange, that the semblance of a very solvent business with a smooth flow of returns can easily persist even long after returns actually come in only at the expense partly of swindled money-lenders and partly of swindled producers. Thus business always appears almost excessively sound right on the eve of a crash. ... Business is always thoroughly sound and the campaign in full swing, until suddenly the debacle takes place.

After the reproduction process has again reached that state of prosperity which precedes that of over-exertion, commercial credit becomes very much extended; this forms, indeed, the "sound" basis again for a ready flow of returns and extended production. In this state the rate of interest is still low, although it rises above its minimum. This is, in fact, the only time that it can be said a low rate of interest, and consequently a relative abundance of loanable capital, coincides with a real expansion of industrial capital. The ready flow and regularity of the returns, linked with extensive commercial credit, ensures the supply of loan capital in spite of the increased demand for it, and prevents the level of the rate of interest from rising. On the other hand, those cavaliers who work without any reserve capital or without any capital at all and who thus operate completely on a money credit basis begin to appear for the first time in considerable numbers. To this is now added the great expansion of fixed capital in all forms, and the opening of new enterprises on a vast and far-reaching scale. The interest now rises to its average level. It reaches its maximum again as soon as the new crisis sets in. Credit suddenly stops then, payments are suspended, the reproduction process is paralysed, and with the previously mentioned exceptions, a superabundance of idle industrial capital appears side by side with an almost absolute absence of loan capital....In a system of production, where the entire continuity of the reproduction process rests upon credit, a crisis must obviously occur — a tremendous rush for means of payment — when credit suddenly ceases and only cash payments have validity. At first glance, therefore, the whole crisis seems to be merely a credit and money crisis. And in fact it is only a question of the convertibility of bills of exchange into money. But the majority of these bills represent actual sales and purchases, whose extension far beyond the needs of society is, after all, the basis of the whole crisis. At the same time, an enormous quantity of these bills of exchange represents plain swindle, which now reaches the light of day and collapses; furthermore, unsuccessful speculation with the capital of other people; finally, commodity-capital which has depreciated or is completely unsaleable, or returns that can never more be realised again. The entire artificial system of forced expansion of the reproduction process cannot, of course, be remedied by having some bank, like the Bank of England, give to all the swindlers the deficient capital by means of its paper and having it buy up all the depreciated commodities at their old nominal values. Incidentally, everything here appears distorted, since in this paper world, the real price and its real basis appear nowhere, but only bullion, metal coin, notes, bills of exchange, securities. Particularly in centres where the entire money business of the country is concentrated, like London, does this distortion become apparent; the entire process becomes incomprehensible; it is less so in centres of production.

As a side note: Today I got the payment for last month from my employer - and the news that one colleague will leave us. Now we are down to 3 full-time and 1 part-time employees. Last year we had 5 full-time and 3 part-time ...

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